MADE IN HEAVEN

"I think that sexuality is important to my work because it’s important to the survival of the species and art is about communicating the information that’s most important. This dialogue of acceptance of sexuality is carried on into aesthetics and all other areas of life".

In 1989, the Whitney Museum of American Art invited Jeff Koons to create a billboard for Image World, a group exhibition that explored the relationship between art and the media. Koons decided to create a huge advertisement featuring him and Ilona Staller (better known as Cicciolina, whom he would later marry) as the costars of the film Made in Heaven, which was never actually made. A few months later the artist returned to the series, working with new materials like glass and marble at workshops in Murano and Pietrasanta, Italy, and referencing important works from art history by masters such as Bernini, Courbet, Houdon, and Manet.